From: "Richard Koenigsberg" <libraryofsocialscience-AT-earthlink.net> Subject: RE: The Human Body and the Body Politic Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 14:26:37 -0400 Daniel Teodoru writes insightfully that "war is grief for many individuals but survival truth for the body-body politic, that is." He observes that it is the "same with culture." Culture represents an imposition of "positive burdens and negative proscriptions on the individual that sacrifice 'me' for 'it'-the social entity to which I belong." Ironically, Teodoru concludes, "in order to feel safe by being a member of that social entity, I sacrifice even myself to protect it." What is the nature and meaning of this "body politic" for which individuals are willing to sacrifice their lives? The body politic is the fantasy of an omnipotent entity separate from the self with which the self imagines itself to be fused. The body politic symbolizes the idea of culture: that which has been created by individuals, but which is imagined to "live on," possessing a life of its own separate from the life of the human beings who have brought it into being, and who sustain and perpetuate it through their actions. Infantryman Coningsby Dawson fought in the First World War and published two books while the war was underway in which he attempted to convey the motives, experiences and suffering of British soldiers. These men, he said, "In the noble indignation of a great ideal, face a worse hell than the most ingenious of fanatics ever planned or plotted. Men die scorched like moths in a furnace, blown to atoms, gassed, tortured. And again other men step forward to take their places well knowing what will be their fate. Bodies may die, but the spirit of England grows greater as each new soul speeds upon its way." By changing a single word in the passage above, it is possible to crystallize the logic of national sacrifice, how bodies of individuals becomes transmogrified into the idea of a body politic: "Bodies may die--therefore the spirit of England grows greater as each new soul speeds upon its way." A mathematical relationship or positive correlation is suggested: as the number of one's own soldiers who die in war increases, so does one's nation become greater. The death of the soldier--GIVES RISE to the life of the nation. What is it that lives or survives when the body politic survives? It is precisely the idea of a domain of reality separate from the self-culture-that "lives on." The human fantasy of immortality is concretized by conceiving of one's nation or society as an actual "body politic." The individual seeks to fuse his small body with the larger body so that he might partake of its power and glory. Just as the Egyptian pyramids were built on the basis of the sweat and blood of hundreds-of-thousands of individuals, so nations or bodies politics are built on the basis of the sacrifice of human lives. The body politic is the fantasy of many bodies united to form one omnipotent body politic. Kantorowicz has written about the "King's Two Bodies." The second body of the king is the dream of a body that lives on after the body of individuals die: "The King is dead. Long live the King." The concrete body of the King passes over into his immortal body. The Second Body of the King is the foundational idea of nationalism: We die for the King (the leader) so that his name might live on in history books. Napoleon lives on, even though (because) millions of soldiers died as a result of his actions. Hitler lives on in history books by virtue of the millions of human beings who died in his name. World War II was initiated by Hitler IN ORDER THAT he could sacrifice millions of lives and thus be "remembered." The term "body politic" is not simply a word or metaphor. Language cannot be separated or divorced from the organismic being that creates language. The dream of culture is that language and discourse CAN be divorced from organismic existence. The fantasy is that there is a realm of existence (contained within the idea of the body politic) that possesses an existence of its own, separate from the lives of concrete human beings. We wish to believe that the body politic is something other than a fantastic magnification or projection of our own body. The fantasy of the nation or body politic or "second body of the King" is the basis for societal violence and the self-destructiveness that has characterized the history of civilization. Violence is created as a result of our desire to believe that earth contains something other than organismic existence, that the objects we create possess a life of their own, independent of the lives of the human beings. Culture becomes a form of self-negation: our own bodies become the "subjects" of the body politic. The SS-man swore "obedience unto death." To become "obedient unto death" is to suggest the existence of some entity to which the individual wishes to submit. Hitler said, "You are nothing, your nation is everything." Or as contemporary theory puts it: "There is no other but the other." The human being sacrifices his actual body in the name of the fantasy of a body that is other than human. The reality of body mutilation and death in war creates the idea of an entity to which these sacrifices have been made. Daniel Teodoru writes that in order to "feel safe by being a member of the social entity to which I belong, I sacrifice even myself to protect it." This "safety" is fundamentally psychological. The safety resides precisely in the feeling of "belonging" to a body politic. "Hitler is Germany, just as Germany is Hitler." The fantasy is that our own body is fused with an omnipotent body. We feel "safe" to the extent that we imagine that fusion with this entity will protect us from death. Sacrifice is the wish to give over one's life energy (one's blood) in the name of perpetuating the fantasy of a body politic whose life is more significant than our own: this omnipotent body will "live on" whereas our small body will cease to exist. The fantasy of the body politic is the source of political history. Scholars say that nations are "imagined communities," or "social constructions," but these are only words. Deep in their heart, they believe that nations actually exist as real entities or bodies politic. We imagine that our own lives cannot be disconnected from the lives of these entities. We exist within nations as if fish within the ocean. The nation will protect us from death. Approximately 42,000 people were killed in car accidents in the United States last year, but no one wages a war against automobiles. With regards, Richard A. Koenigsberg, Ph. D. ____________________________________________________________ Library of Social Science 92-30 56th Avenue, Suite 3-E Elmhurst, NY 11373, USA Fax: 1-413-832-8145 Richard A. Koenigsberg, Ph. D., Director Telephone: 1-718-393-1081 Mei Ha Chan, Associate Director Telephone: 1-718-393-1075 Orion Anderson, Research Director Telephone: 1-718-393-1104 Website for Library of Social Science Book Exhibits http://home.earthlink.net/~lssbookexhibits/ Website for LIBRARY OF SOCIAL SCIENCE http://home.earthlink.net/~libraryofsocialscience/ Website for THE KOENIGSBERG LECTURES ON THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CULTURE AND HISTORY http://www.conflictaslesson.com/why_main.html -----Original Message----- From: owner-nietzsche-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU [mailto:owner-nietzsche-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU] On Behalf Of David Bartecchi Sent: Thursday, October 21, 2004 11:11 AM To: nietzsche-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU Subject: RE: The Human Body and the Body Politic Richard, The idea that the "the structure of discourse grows out of the experience of the human body" is interesting and worth some discussion. Wouldn't this imply that there exists some underlying or primary truth to how we experience the body? Even if this were true, wouldn't the experience of that experience be shaped by discourse. For example, isn't the concept of "ego" shaped by a western discourse that places emphasis on the individual? dave bartecchi -----Original Message----- From: owner-nietzsche-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU [mailto:owner-nietzsche-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU]On Behalf Of Richard Koenigsberg Sent: Thursday, October 21, 2004 9:55 AM To: nietzsche-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU Subject: The Human Body and the Body Politic Dear Colleague, Whereas Foucault, Lacan and other theorists suggest that the body is molded and shaped by discourse, I hypothesize that the structure of discourse grows out of the experience of the human body. Freud stated that "The human ego is ultimately a body ego." Perhaps conceptions of the nation and body politic represent a projection of the human body. At least in the case of Hitler and Nazism, it is possible to perceive the manner in which experiences and fantasies surrounding the body are externalized to create the ideology of genocide. With best regards, Richard A. Koenigsberg, Ph. D. The Human Body and the Body Politic: Genocide as an Immunological Fantasy By observing images and metaphors bound to central elements of an ideology, it is possible to reveal the ideology's underlying structure. Hitler was the deepest believer in Nazism and its most passionate advocate. Through analysis of the central metaphors contained within his writings and speeches, we may perceive the relationship between Hitler's ideas and the fantasy that defined and shaped them. The logic of Hitler's ideology was based upon the coherence of the fantasy that was its source. Genocide as a mode of activity represented the acting out of a fantasy put forth by Hitler and conveyed by him to the German people. The central fantasy that gave rise to genocide was that of Germany as an actual body politic containing pathogenic microorganisms whose continued presence within the nation would lead to its death. Hitler conceived of Germany as a gigantic body that was under attack. He referred to the Jew as a "bacillus infecting the life of peoples" and declared that he would devote his life to fighting the "international carrier of the bacillus." In order to rescue Germany, it was necessary to eliminate the cause of the nation's disease. _____ To read Richard Koenigsberg's groundbreaking papers on the dynamics of genocide and war (listed below), please visit: <http://home.earthlink.net/~libraryofsocialscience/> http://home.earthlink.net/~libraryofsocialscience/ <http://home.earthlink.net/~libraryofsocialscience/> AS THE SOLDIER DIES, SO DOES THE NATION COME ALIVE: The Sacrificial Meaning of Warfare DYING FOR ONE'S COUNTRY: The Logic of War and Genocide THE LOGIC OF THE HOLOCAUST: Why the Nazi's Killed the Jews THE SACRIFICIAL MEANING OF THE HOLOCAUST AZTEC WARFARE, WESTERN WARFARE: The Soldier as Sacrificial Victim _____ The purpose of National Socialism, according to Hitler, was to "maintain the life of Germany." He called Germany a "corporate body," a "single organism" that consisted of the German people as cells of this organism. The Jewish people also constituted cells of the national organism. These cells, however, made no contribution to the life of Germany. Rather, as bacteria, viruses and parasites, they lived and fed off the body politic, draining the nation of its energy and capacity to exist. Hitler defined his mission in medical terms. Although ordinary politicians saw the "forms of our general disease" and tried to combat them," these politicians "blindly ignored the virus." Hitler conceived of himself as that unique leader who had identified the nature of Germany's disease and possessed the ability to affect a cure. In Mein Kampf, he stated that Germans would choose as their leader the individual who "profoundly recognizes the distress of his people" and who, after he has attained "the ultimate clarity" with regard to the nature of the disease, "seriously tries to cure it." In his diary on March 27, 1942, Goebbels described the process of extermination as "pretty barbaric and not to be described in detail" but had no compunctions because after all this was a "life-and- death struggle between the Aryan race and the Jewish bacillus." In his 1935-6 propaganda booklet Himmler observed that the battle against peoples conducted by Jews had belonged "so far as we can look back, to the natural course of life on our planet." Therefore one could calmly reach the conviction that the struggle of nations against Jews--of life against death--was quite as much a law of nature as "man's struggle against some epidemic, as the struggle of a healthy body to eliminate plague bacillus." Why did Nazi leaders employ biological metaphors to articulate the genocidal project? What was the "law of nature" that led Himmler to believe that the struggle of nations against Jews was equivalent to the struggle of a "healthy body against a plague bacillus?" In Mein Kampf, Hitler said: "Could anyone believe that Germany alone was not subject to exactly the same laws as all other human organisms?" What was the "law" that Hitler and Himmler believed was governing the life of the German body? The "immune system" is that complex mechanism of chemical and biological reactions acting to protect the organism from destructive entities within the interior of the body. The immune system works based on its capacity to identify cells that are foreign or "not self." Professor Fischer of the University of Berlin stated on June 20, 1939 that when a people wants to preserve its own nature it must reject, suppress and eliminate "alien elements," and declared that "the Jew is such as alien." Jews in Nazi ideology were portrayed as bacteria, viruses and parasites--alien elements that the German body politic recognized as "not self." The normal or natural tendency of the national organism was to work to eliminate or destroy the foreign cells. Genocide grew out of an immunological fantasy. Since Jews were conceived as microorganisms, it was necessary that every single one of them be removed from within the body of civilization, lest they begin again to divide and multiply; thus the fanatic, furious, hysterical will to destroy. On the evening of February 22, 1942, Hitler met with Himmler and a Danish SS major and expounded his conviction that the "discovery of the Jewish virus" was one of the "greatest revolutions that has taken place in the world." The battle in which the Nazis were engaged, he said, was of the "same sort as the battle waged, during the last century, by Pasteur and Koch." How many diseases, he declared, have their origin in the Jewish virus! "We shall regain our health only by eliminating the Jew." Robert Koch was a German physician who discovered the tuberculosis bacteria in 1882. His 'germ theory' postulated that each disease had a specific cause in a pathogenic microorganism. Hitler conceived of himself as the "Robert Koch of Germany", the genius who had discovered the germ that was the source of his nation's suffering. Having diagnosed the cause, he then would perform that "heroic deed" in order to "rescue a nation which is suffering from a fatal disease." Hitler's actions on the stage of history followed as a consequence of his fantasy that Germany was an actual body politic containing pathogenic microorganisms. Did Hitler believe this fantasy, or did he put forth his ideology in order to justify killing for other reasons? Based on thirty-five years of research, I conclude that Hitler did believe this fantasy, indeed experienced it as real, and thus was able to convey his ideology so passionately to others. Rudolf Hess often declared that "Hitler is Germany, just as Germany is Hitler." This statement articulated Hitler's fantasy that his body was fused with the body politic, the boundaries of his own body co-extensive with Germany's boundaries. Insofar as Jews were a disease within the body of Germany, Hitler therefore experienced the Jewish disease as present within his own body. What was the nature of Hitler's disease? We say that people "identify with their nations." Freud theorized that the human ego is "first and foremost a body ego." Nations may be viewed as projections of the body ego, vast, omnipotent extensions of the self. Hitler, an early embodiment theorist, insisted that Germany was not merely an abstract idea or imagined community, but rather a "real substance of flesh and blood." Killing Jews for Hitler was equivalent to destroying a diseased part of the body. Hitler put forth his plan for extermination as follows: "One must act radically. When one pulls out a tooth, one does it with a single tug, and the pain quickly goes away. The Jew must clear out of Europe." Hitler conceived of genocide as an activity that was equivalent to removing an infected part of the body that caused pain. In killing Jews, Hitler attempted to kill off a diseased, painful part of himself. We may hypothesize and begin to explore the idea that genocide has a psychosomatic dimension. The external object requires destruction because it is experienced as if a part of the body, a disease threatening one's existence. Killing is undertaken in order to eliminate the source of the painful disease, that is, to remove from within the body politic a destructive entity experienced as coterminous with the self. _____ E-mail: <mailto:libraryofsocialscience-AT-earthlink.net> libraryofsocialscience-AT-earthlink.net Phone: 718-393-1081 Web: <http://home.earthlink.net/~libraryofsocialscience/> http://home.earthlink.net/~libraryofsocialscience/ --- StripMime Warning -- MIME attachments removed --- This message may have contained attachments which were removed. 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